Apparently, when you take Met Office data on climate, they find:
- It’s been the warmest year UK
- It’s been the wettest year in Scotland.
So, very simple question for any Scot (given the dreadful summer and Autumn), is … how on earth has it been so hot UK wide when Scotland has been so cold and wet?
So, where is the figure for Scotland’s temperature? … Apparently, our cold year doesn’t fit the Global warming bullshite of the Met Office propaganda machine.
The fact, is that this year we have seen a change in the position of the jet stream which has brought a series of wet and cold weather to Scotland and drier, warmer weather to England. Because England dominates the statistics, the result is that the UK temperature has been warmer, but apparently, England hasn’t had it’s driest year on record …
… so, Scotland is useful as a filler … not because of our colder weather, but because of the wet.
Happy New Year!
Addendum
Following the post I received this email:
I would like to draw your attention to a couple of errors in your blog post below.
http://scottishsceptic.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/met-says-2011-hottest-year-on-record-lies-damned-lies-and-met-office-statistics/#comments.
In this blog you suggest the Met Office has stated that 2011 is the warmest year on record for the UK. However, this is not the case. The release you report on which can be found at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2011/december-and-annual-statistics clearly says it is provisionally the second warmest. Please could you correct this error.
For information, Scotland had it’s 6th warmest year on record, and as you highlight – it’s wettest. To provide more seasonal context Scotland had it’s warmest Spring, second warmest Autumn and 33rd coldest summer on record. (The UK record goes back to 1910)
There is certainly no bias toward England relating to the calculation of statistics. The methods used for the compilation of UK wide statistics can be found at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/about/methods.html
The Met Office as the holder of the National Climate Record on behalf of the UK has an obligation to share these statistics with the UK public. The media are always interested in this and for the benefit of the media we pick out the highlights, such as wettest, driest, hottest and coldest.
I would be very grateful if you could correct these errors in your post.
Kind regards
Dave
Met Office Chief Press Officer
Somehow it is all very reminiscent of the spin machine of the new labour tyranny that took this country to the brink of bankruptcy. Forget what is really happening, all that matters is that they have a spin machine to silence any critics of their disastrous policies.
For nearly a decade the Met Office produced a global warming forecast predicting warming of some 0.05C/year and at the end of those nine years the likes of “Dave” produced a press release saying that the Met Office global temperature forecasts had been incredibly accurate because they were only 0.06C/year too warm.
But the real point is that whether or not it was the warmest year … what I heard from the Met Office propaganda machine in the BBC was that it was the warmest year. …. And if I, someone who is keenly interested in the subject … heard it that way, then I’ve no doubt that that was the way that the vast majority of the public heard it … WHAT IS MORE I KNOW THAT IS WHAT THEY WERE INTENDED TO HEAR THE BBC-Met Office WARMIST spin-machine!
Mike,
You have failed to reply to my recent communication concerning the deranged and libellous ravings of Mr. Craig. I realise it must be difficult to admit that your greatest fan is a man incapable of logial thought or civilised debate, but nonetheless I would appreciate a reply. Do you really think it is acceptable to call another contributor:
A ‘lying murdering piece of filth’
and a
‘wholly corrupt, lying, thieving, fascist, parasite’
and a
’100% lying thieving pensioner murdering piece of filth’
If this is the standard of open, honest debate you are seeking to foster then I can’t see you getting a lot of takers. This blog will remain a backwater where Mr. Craig can pat you on the back and tell you how wonderful you are while chasing off any other contributors with random conspiracist gibberish and libellous insults. Hosting content like this of course also exposes you to the possibility of a libel action.
What can I expect next, death threats?
It is increasingly obvious that not merely the conclusions of the politiciand and state funded alarmist propagandists (such as the Hockey Stick) are fraudulent but the basic measurements are too.
Global temperatures in 2011 are set to be the tenth highest on record and are higher than any previous year with a La Niña event (which has a relative cooling influence). The 13 warmest years have all occurred in the 15 years since 1997. The extent of Arctic sea ice in 2011 was the second lowest on record, and its volume was the lowest.
These are facts, and cherry-picking other headlines and bits and pieces of isolated data will not change them.
Despite what you say Scots Renewables it is very difficult from a Scottish perspective to attach much credibility to the Met Office’s claims. As a keen gardener this has been an unusually poor year, and the lack of sustained warm weather is a major factor. The Met Office does seem to be thirled to its belief in global warming and it is sometimes difficult to believe that they are not using statistices to arrive at the conclusion that they may be biased to have predetermined. Statistics can be used to “prove” all sorts of unlikely conclusions; sometimes you should rely on common sense – it can be a far better guide.
It’s been an appalling year up here in Argyll Alex, there’s no denying it – and as keen gardeners ourselves we have been more than a little disappointed. However, it was extremely warm three weeks ago when I was in St. Lucia. Common sense tells me that Scotland is not the world.
It’s the U.N.’s World Meteorlogical Organization that says it has been the tenth warmest year on record globally, and warmer than any previous year with a La Niña event. Our own Met Office has only commented on UK weather over the year.
Of course, if you believe that the UN and all its offshoots are part of an ecofascist world domination attempt then you should not allow them any credibility 🙂
The fact is that while extent of sea ice can be measured by satellite, even in theory, the volume must involve estimates of depth. It is possible that it is purely coincidence that the more speculative a figure is the more likely the one produced by state funded propagandists is to support their line. However it is a fact that such coincidence is statistically highly improbable.
Even were the “facts” claimed by our government paid propagandist to be factual they are, by definition, cherry picked.
Sorry Scots Renewables but the post on which I was commenting was specifically about Scotland and where it fits into the Met Office’s claims in respect of the UK as a whole; no mention was made of the UN or ecofascism. I think that Scottish Sceptic has raised an interesting question on how the statistics have shown it to be so hot UK wide when Scotland, a significant part of the area to which these statistics relate, has suffered such poor weather.
St Lucia eh? That would be a “voting with your feet” acknowledgement that warmth is rather attractive. Who would have thunk it?
Did you notice whether St L has more or less plant life than an equivalent scots island?
So the weather has been different up here to that South of the border. I fail to see how that is in any way remarkable or worth commenting on in the context of global warming. Perhaps you could enlighten me?
And the Met Office doesn’t make ‘claims’ – it publishes statistics based on measurements. It is of course possible that the measurements are skewed towards England because there are more recording stations, or that there is some difference in the situation of ‘typical’ recording stations – but I can’t find anything to suggest that the Met Office is in any way falsifying the figures. Can you,, or is this all just idle speculation?
Power has just returned after a cut of about an hour and a half – perhaps we are too dependent on Scots Renewables?
You have suggested ways in which the statistics may be skewed , which addresses the question raised in the original post. Statistics is a complex subject and statistical bias can be readily introduced; this does not in any way imply an act of deliberate falsification. Where a statistical result seems at odds with empirical observation then it is reasonable to question whether the statistics are correct. The observation that it doesn’t seem to have been particularly warm in Scotland when Scotland constitutes a sizeable part of the UK is therefore a valid point. The Met Office statement (since you don’t like the word “claim” – I don’t want semantics to intrude on the discussion) regarding UK temperature would therefore imply a very hot year in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Perhaps this was indeed the case. Alternatively if the statistics are unduly weighted towards England then this is a cause for concern as misleading figures are being produced.
Alex,
I think you see shadows where there are none. Anyway, the figures for the four countries of the UK for 2011 for temperature and rain can be seen at the bottom of THIS PAGE
Given thousands of temperature stations around the world are excluded from the result set nowadays, ‘global temperature’ is meaningless and cannot be used as ‘evidence’ of AGW.
Tghe Met Office’s claim of the “warmest October temoperature for a century” was on the BBC within minutes whereas thjey used to take a couple of weeks to check out that record claims (I’m not sure how claiming a record isn’t claiming) held water. At the very least they are clearly being less careful than they used to be.
I note the libellous, though I assume sane, SR, who resolutely censors the people he lies about from his own blog is still hypocritical enough to make use of Mike’s proper objection to censorship.
More seriously, having made a claim about the Met Office’s credibility he doesn’t attempt to address counter evidence but merely moves on to other claims.
The historical temperature record is meaningless; it has been ‘fixed’ too many times. The calculation of global trends is now based on something like 1000 weather stations when it used to be based on about 6000. The 1000 should be in the bin like the 5000. No self-respecting statistician would even take those data out of the bin to look at them seriously. It’s a scurrilous and scandalous misuse of data processing fuelled by mans arrogance that he knows better than historical data. I guess if the data do not fit ones hypothesis then it’s not ones hypothesis that needs fixing it’s the data – unbelievable. Had such chicanery been performed in industry where claims are regulated someone might be on a charge.
I did see recently that amendments to the NOAA record over the last 4-5 years could account for 0.15C increase in global temps, just corrections made in the last few years mind. Cookery Books.
Someone doesn’t know their history~~~
Best look towards the earliest years of the 20th century. You’ll find the hottest years there. All in all, you’re spewing AGW rhetoric. Argumentum ad populum. Nothing we haven’t seen before.